Buber: Mysticism Without Loss of Identity - philosopher Martin Buber

Judaism, Wntr, 2000 by Martin A. Bertman

MARTIN A. BERTMAN teaches philosophy at Helsinki, and has also taught at SUNY, Scranton (NEH Professor), Humboldt (Distinguished Professor), Trinity College Dublin, Ben-Gurion (1986-89), Hamburg, and Catania. He is President of the International Hobbes Association and Editor-in-Chief of Hobbes Studies. Versions of this paper have been given at Schilier Universitaet Jena and Canton Jewish Community Center.

NOTES

(1.) Martin Buber, "My Way to Hasidism," in Hasidism and Modern Man, edited and translated by Maurice Friedman (New York: Harper Torchbook, 1966), p. 69.

(2.) Martin Buber, Paths in Utopia (London: Routledge & K. Paul, 1946).

(3.) Franz Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption, translated from the 2d ed. of 1930 by William W. Hallo. (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971).

(4.) St. Bonaventura, Mind's Road to God, translated, with an introduction by George Boas (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1953).

(5.) Martin Buber, "With a Monist," in Pointing the Way: Collected Essays, translated from the German and edited by Maurice Friedman (New York: Harper, 1957), p. 28

(6.) Martin Buber, "The Baal Shem Tov's Instruction in Intercourse with God," in Hasidism and Modern Man, edited and translated by Maurice Friedman (New York: Horizon Press, 1958), pp. 183-184.

(7.) In Hasidism and Modern Man, pp. 242-254.

(8.) Martin Buber, I and Thou, with a postscript by the author added, translated by Ronald Gregor Smith, 2d ed. (New York: Scribner, 1958), p. 130.

(9.) Walter Kaufmann, "Prologue", in I and Thou, by Martin Buber. A new translation with a prologue "I and You" and notes by Walter Kaufmann (New York: Scribner, 1970), p. 23.

(10.) I- Thou, p. 3.

(11.) Martin Buber, Eclipse of God: Studies in the Relation Between Religion and Philosophy (New York: Harper, 1952), p. 43.

(12.) Nietzsche, Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks.

(13.) Eclipse of God, p. 11.

(14.) I-Thou, p. 126.

(15.) I-Thou, p. 75.

(16.) Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig, Scripture and Translation, translated by Lawrence Rosenwald with Everett Fox (Bloomington : Indiana University Press, 1994), p. 9.

(17.) Martin Buber, Two Types of Faith, translated by Norman P. Goldhawk (London: Routledge & Paul, 1950, p. 12.

(18.) Two Types of Faith, p. 132.

(19.) Eclipse, p. 3.

(20.) Two Types of Faith p. 159.

(21.) Two Types of Faith, p. 129.

(22.) Two Types of Faith, p. 132.

(23.) In Shmoth (Exodus 31:35-6), God speaking to Moses, says of Bezalel, whose name means "in the image of God," that he (and the master craftsman Oholiab) should be chosen to build the Ark and other holy objects for the Tent of God's Presence because he has Khabod, that is, chuchmah (wisdom), binah (understanding), and da'ath (knowledge). Despite the Jewish suspicion of images, it is only a man with such a name and such a holy task of whom God says he has Khabod. For kabbalah, these are the three middot (qualities, measures) or sefiroth (spheres) of God's zimzum (contracted presence in His creation) immediately below keter(crown). For Khabod or Lubavitcher Hasidism they are the three highest.